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Morning Thoughts |
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Isaiah 40:9, "O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!” This morning, many people are discouraged for various and sundry reasons. Many times, the reason for the discouragement is that they are focused on temporal things "under the sun." Walking by faith requires that we focus our attention on things of a heavenly nature and not on the things of the earth. While we must work and live in the world, we should not focus on the world. Our focus and affection is on things above and not on the things of the earth. The Lord commands the prophet to cry unto the people of God. In the past, I have thought the Lord told Isaiah to cry of the people being as the grass of the field (from the previous verses). However, now I believe that Isaiah cries about the thing in this verse. Isaiah requests of the Lord what to cry, because we are all but grass (including Isaiah). If we are all but grass and the dust of the earth, what brings comfort? What brings strength and consolation? Glad tidings bring comfort! What are those glad tidings? Many times, we feel impressed to speak on different aspects of the word of God when preaching, but there is truly only one thing that we can cry at the end of the day that brings strength. Behold your God! When Pilate brought Christ unto the people, he declared, "Behold the man." Now, Christ was indeed a man (and still is), but a more appropriate statement by Pilate would have been, Behold your God! When we can see our God by an eye of faith, that is a blessed condition. Even when we see Him, we still may be as Isaiah felt earlier and say, "Woe is me!" Indeed, seeing our God and beholding Him emphasizes what great sinners we really are. It shows us our lowly place and position.
But, when
beholding our God (through the preaching from faith to faith), we begin to see
of our God leaving the portals of glory to walk this low ground of sin and
sorrow. We begin to behold how great love He loved us even when we were yet
without strength, He died for us. We begin to see that He vitally brought us
into His family. We begin to then look forward to the day that He will return to
gather His jewels. Indeed, He humbled Himself for a brief time, but the second
time is "without sin unto salvation." (Hebrews 9:28) This morning, if a minister
could say one last thing before breathing out his last, it should be, "Behold
your God!"
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